Unable to access external drive.

I'm a newbie to macs. Tried to use my Maxtor One Touch III USB external hard drive which had previously been my windows backup drive, on my new mac. Copied all the files to the mac, reformatted it with Mac Extended and then copied the files back over to the drive. Everything was fine until I installed the "proper drivers" for the Maxtor drive and now the drive isn't recognized at all by the mac. A call to maxtor revealed that the USB drive is not supported on mac. My question is is there any way to "uninstall" these new drivers I installed and revert back to the native mac driver that originally recognized the drive? Any other ideas?

Congrats on the new iMac 24" and welcome to Apple Discussions... you've come to the right place.
Have you tried doing a search for the external drive software (drivers)? If not, click the round (blue or gray) icon top right of your screen, that is Spotlight. In the drop down search field type in the name of the software. Hopefully it will return the names of the files and where they are. If you locate the Maxtor files, drag them to the Trash.
If you get that far... go here and download a new driver for Macintosh:
http://maxtorsolutions.seagatestorage.com/?elqPURLPage=1773?lid=g00246&gclid=CMn 97f-BtYwCFQNQEgodhxTbSA
Also, if you are a "switcher" .. good info here: http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/
Carolyn

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I don't know if it's the same problem, but in the last few weeks we have had that happen on two machines running Snow Leopard and one running Lion 10.7.5. In our case, it always involves Time Machine, and the FW external FW drive becomes read-only for no apparent reason and despite the fact that Command+I reveals the user "can read and write" to the drive. Running Apple's disk utility to Repair Disk a few times usually fixes it.
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I have an XP SP2 box with several partitions. I Just purchased a MacMini (fisrt time apple user). I have joined the maac to the same workgroup as the XP box and can access all the partitions on the XP box with no problem. With the exception of the C: drive and the External USB drive.
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This could be a smart design inside XP. FAT32 can't store file ownership so maybe it refuses to share a FAT format drve? From a security point of view this would be the right thing to do. On the other hand it could be a bug in XP that just by dumb lock looks like it is doing the right thing.
Either way it sounds like you have a good workaround: put the drive on the Mac and let the Mac share the drive. It's best if the drive is reformatted for the Mac so that user ownership and permissons can be used.
Don't worry one computer can't know how another's dive is formatted. The network hides this. All my shared files are on EXT3 formatted drives on a Linux server. All the clients see is "SBM".

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Ah, no. That certainly sounds like the problem though. A friend of mine set it up for me originally and I'm not too familiar with networking. How do I go about adding permission? On the router directly?
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Hello,
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I would consider trying the following:
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
4. Upon completion of the Archive and Install you will have a Previous System Folder in the root directory. You should retain the PSF until you are sure you do not need to manually transfer any items from the PSF to your newly installed system.
5. After moving any items you want to keep from the PSF you should delete it. You can back it up if you prefer, but you must delete it from the hard drive.
6. You can now download a Combo Updater directly from Apple's download site to update your new system to the desired version as well as install any security or other updates. You can also do this using Software Update.

Accessing External Drive Over Internet

I have an Airport Extreme Base Station and have recently purchased a 1TB external hard drive which I have connected to it by USB. I can access the added disk fine when using my home nework.
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Thanks for your reply.
I followed your instructions but I although I can see the drive as shared in the Finder (http://idisk.me.com/brogan/Public/Pictures/Skitch/Applications-20100910-092842.p ng), I am unable to connect to it.
When trying to connect, I get the following:
http://idisk.me.com/brogan/Public/Pictures/Skitch/NetAuthAgent-20100910-093015.p ng
I notice that the following is also displayed in my 'Back To My Mac' tab under MobileMe preferences.
http://idisk.me.com/brogan/Public/Pictures/Skitch/MobileMe-20100910-093133.png
I am trying to access from my Work Network (it was fine from home) and can currently access my iDisk with no problems. Any ideas?

Permission Problems After Clean Intall Accessing External Drives

Okay, the ubiquitous permissions problem. Perhaps apple should release a system update that strips this BS out, as single users and home users, do we really need this? I'm just driving my Ferrari to the grocery store! It is just complications that nobody needs.
So, with a fat chance of that happening, is there a DEFINITIVE paper/instruction on permissions? Please point me to it. I've tried here and there is nothing that seems to work for me. I'd like to NOT have to learn anything and continue without messing around with this crap, but it did it to me, so now I'm forced to screw around to fix it.
(I used to be a system admin years ago so I can take a fairly technical approach, but I'd rather not. (Puh-leeze! No terminal instructions.)
Here's my problem:
Having had a problem with corrupt login items and being unable to uninstall them, (the machine crashed and rebooted) I was left to perform a clean install of my system.
I have numerous hard drives attached.
Well, upon a successful install and migration of settings from Safari and Firefox and such, I was gently told that a couple of my drives are not accessible by me, the user. (I can see'em, but some apps like transmission won't write to them. Or backup software cannot backup to them.) I'm currently setup up with my daily account/user as the admin, with the super-admin account dormant and not used, as I've been instructed. (My previous system had me using my super-admin account all the time.)
How do I go about setting permissions to reaccess these drives without checking the "ignore permissions" box?
Is the simplist thing to do, to just copy/backup the drives, erase them under my present account, and re-install the data to fix this permission BS?
I've done the "fix permissions" thing and it does not help.
Do drives that you create with a former system user, retain the user profile that created them even after you install a new system, thus causing this problem?
Thanks
Herkimer

What users do you have defined on your system?
Herkime wrote:
Thanks for the help, guys. I downloaded the app and will take a look at that to fix my problems.
What user do you want to use to look at the data?
Decide what user you are going to logon as.
Use BatChmod to make this the owner of the data. The group should be whatever is the group assigned to your logon user.
Do drives that you create with a former system user, retain the user profile that created them even after you install a new system, thus causing this problem?
Files you created with root still have root permissions.
The other 5 diskes, internal, externals FW, and removeables FW toasters, were all created under the old system, using the super-admin user. That designation is gone. (Actually, I recreated the same name/login on the newly installed system, along with my everyday admin user log in.
I get the feeling I'm stuck in a little permission limbo, as the disks are looking for the old super-user and that's gone. Correct?
I assume by super-user you mean root. You can enable the root account again if you wish. There is not need.
I'm not sure what user, or group I should be setting everything too, now. Me, as the admin/user or
Who is Herk the super-admin? How did you define Herk.
By definition super-user is root. You are not allowed to rename root. So the super user isn't Herk.
A user can be given admin rights. This doesn't give the user super user/root rights. Root can read & write any file on the system. This root is the super user.
By Herk do you mine you gave Herk admin rights?
Bottom line:
[] Decide what user you will be using on your system.
[] Change all permission you your external drives to match user & group of that id.
Some people define two user on their system. This way maybe more secure, but with more hassles.
standard user
admin user
I run with one user:
admin user. This lets me install programs without have to change to another user. It doesn't let me look at system data. I cannot look at other userids data. ( I want to look at data I do not have permissions to, I can use the terminal to gain access. )
Robert
Message was edited by: rccharles

How to access external drives while in Windows

Using VMWare Fusion as the system hosting Windows XP. Have specific programs in Windows only but of course they work much better on the IMac. I edit a ton of video and have the vids all stored on eternal drives. These drives are read by the Mac and all show up on the desktop and are accessible for all Mac programs.
Here's the issue. I need to access those external drives from a Windows video editing program being run thru Fusion. The Windows program is accessing a folder via "Shared folder on host" but the only folders showing up there are the ones listed under "Home" om "My Places". I'm sure this is nothing more than a setting but I am in need of help! All my editing is held up at the moment so any assistance is greatly appreciated for this Apple rookie. Thanks.

I don't have my laptop with fusion loaded, so I can't think of the exact terms. However, you should be able to set the shared folders in the settings for the virtual machine. The ones you see are the default setup, but you can define more paths to view while in Fusion.

Unable to repair External Drive disk permissions

I have an external harddrive which holds my itunes library. Today I have been getting permission errors and now my itunes won't access the files on the drive.
I have tried to fix the errors with disk utility but now when I try to repair it I get the error: Could not unmount the disk.
Now I can't even see the iTunes folder on the external drive (I can see others) but I know it is there as 150GB of data is unaccounted for.

I had the same problem with my Time Machine backup disk and was able to solve it without the serious computer calisthenics recommended by others on the web. I'm running Snow Leopard on an intel iMac and using an external Seagate drive. Here's how I got it fixed.
1. Unmounted the drive and unplugged it.
2. Plugged it back in after a decent interval to let the disk spin down.
3. Shut down the iMac and restarted it a few minutes later (hard reset).
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Hope this helps.

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Drive Erase for Lion/Mountain Lion
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
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Can I access external drive on mac mini from windows 7 pc ?

I am trying to add mac mini to homegroup network, I can view windows 7 folders from MAC MINI ok, but from windows PC i can see all shared folders on MAC MINI internal drive but not external drive.
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I have done this already, win7 machine see's the folders but i can note access them, I fear this is a windows issue

Unable to unlock external drive or repair (but can change password)

I have a Freecom 1TB USB 2 external drive with a single partition with Filevault 2 encryption enabled.
The Mac Air detects the drive and prompts for the password to unlock. Prior to this problem it was retrieved automatically from my Keychain (entry still there). An incorrect password immediately gives the window shake. The correct password results in either a prompt to re-enter a password after few minutes or considerably longer.
Disk Utility (run from a standard or admin account or in recovery mode) appears to Verify and Repair the drive fine, but when the partition is selected I get:
Verifying volume “1,000”
Checking storage systemChecking volume.
disk3: Scan for Volume Headers
Invalid Volume Header @ 0: incorrect block type
Invalid Volume Header @ 999709908480: incorrect block type
disk3 is not a CoreStorage volume
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Earlier I also got a message in the details of drive Verify or Repair in Recovery mode of "transaction group 12: cksum mismatch", though the final result of the Verify and Repair stated the drive was okay.
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Suggestions very welcome! Preferrably to fix or if that is not possible ways to potentially retrieve some of the data.
Drive and Partition info from Disk Utility:
Name : Freecom Mobile Drive XXS Media
          Type :           Disk
          Partition Map Scheme :           GUID Partition Table
          Disk Identifier :           disk2
          Media Name :           Freecom Mobile Drive XXS Media
          Media Type :           Generic
          Connection Bus :           USB
          USB Serial Number :           C0001E86AA51
          Device Tree :           IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/EHC2@1A,7
          Writable :           Yes
          Ejectable :           Yes
          Location :           External
          Total Capacity :           1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 Bytes)
          Disk Number :           2
          Partition Number :           0
          S.M.A.R.T. Status :           Not Supported
Name : 1,000
          Type :           Encrypted Logical Partition
          Disk Identifier :           disk3
          Mount Point :           Not mounted
          Disk Status :           Online
          File System :           Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
          Connection Bus :           USB
          Device Tree :           IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/EHC2@1A,7
          Writable :           Yes
          Universal Unique Identifier :           7663BACA-6B14-3D7F-8C39-5A5319AE9F4B
          Capacity :           999.71 GB (999,709,908,992 Bytes)
          Owners Enabled :           No
          Can Turn Owners Off :           Yes
          Can Be Formatted :           Yes
          Bootable :           Yes
          Supports Journaling :           Yes
          Journaled :           No
          Disk Number :           3
          Partition Number :           0

I'll answer my own question, which may help others.
I found no solution and reformatted the drive.
Not sure if my question was poorly worded but after no response I tried one of the main paid support sites. The expert who took up my question didn't seem at first to be aware of encrypting external drives under Lion. No viable solution was found, so I gave up and reformatted the drives.
This is the third time I have had issues with the stability of OSX formatted external drives, so enough is enough. I'm sticking with FAT32 (the 4Gb limit isn't a major problem) for all my drives except my Time Machine drive. No encryption on that drive either.

Finder hangs when accessing external drive

My finder hangs when accessing an external drive.
It is specific to a drive the I created on my TC disk.
That drive and TC work perfectly unless I mouint it and alter anything on that disk (I can read ok but writing causes a freeze.)
The writing that I do is always ok; if I trash or move something it always ends up where I wanted it after a restart.
The process looks like:
I drag an item to the trash (or another directory) and the progress bar shows success down to 3 or 5 seconds and then it stops (curser becomes a spinning beach ball.)
I can hear the tone of a successful transfer if I wait a little while but the finder is unresponsive untill I restart.
Once restarted I can check the external disk and the file transer (to a directory or the trash) appears to have completed without corruption.
I have repaired drives and permissions all over the place with no results.
Can I just say that I tired of constant unnecessary updates that slow my computer, rearrange my settings and cause crashes and other problems that have to be researched and chased down through hours of online troubleshooting. I would love to have thoroughly tested software and hardware that just works without the hassle of having to constantly tweek my machine to get it to work consistantly.

Are you saying you have this problem only with one drive, not with others?

E1550 - unable to access USB drive with Ubuntu

I am probably overlooking something real obvious but after screwing around for two hours I figure I need some help.
I am running Ubuntu 14.04. I have set up the E1550 router with an external drive that I formatted with the router utility. At this point I do NOT have an internet connection hooked to the router - I am not sure I want to for now. What I would like to do is to be able to access, wirelessly, a drive that multiple users can use to back up their important files onto.
I have tried using anonymous disk read/write access as well as creating shares. All the features seem to be setting up ok but at this point I have no clue how to access the drive.
I have tried using the Ubuntu files utility and then selecting 'browse network' followed by selecting 'windows network'. Alas, 'windows network' is an empty file with no drive present.
I have tried accessing the router wirelessly and also hard wired - no joy.
Am I maybe not acessing the drive properly through Ubuntu? Do I need to mount the remote drive rather than accessing it through the windows network ?
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Solved!
Go to Solution.

I am not expert with Ubuntu OS but have you tried to map the drive on your computer? I have no idea how to do that using Ubuntu but if you're using Windows or Mac, you can simply follow the steps from Linksys KB. It usually helps me when I am trying to enable file-sharing capabilities within my network.

Unknown User/Incorrect Password when trying to access external drive

I just set up my airport extreme base station, plugged in USB hub with two printers, and all worked excellent. Then I hooked up an external hard drive, again no problems at all. I was able to access the hard drive on my MacBook Pro with the password I set up and everything was great. When I try to access the hard drive on my windows computer, I keep getting a message saying "unknown user, incorrect password, contact administrator" I am using the same password I used on my MacBook. The drive was formatted in Fat32 and works on my MacBook and on my windows PC when connected directly via USB. The only problem seems to be when I try to access the drive on the windows PC. The drive shows up no problem and the dialogue box opens and asks for the password, but then I keep getting that error message. I contacted apple tech support and they pretty much told me they have nothing to do with windows, even though the product can by run entirely on windows machines with no macs at all. Has anyone else had any problems like this, or have any clue what I might be able to do???
Thanks

Will windows recognize a drive formatted in Mac OS
Extended? I had originally tried that, and my
windows pc wouldnt even recognize it.
Well XP/Vista will not play nice with it unless you buy and install a Windows shareware/boxware program called MacDrive. This way you can make that PC read/write a Mac OS X Extended formatted drive. Bonus is you can use that drive for a central iTunes Library that both machines can use.
Rev A. Dual 1.8 G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Unable to access external drive.

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